City University of New York,

Graduate School and University Center

CUNY Graduate Center Collections

This collection is a collaborative project between the Mina Rees Library, the Seymour B. Durst Old York Library, and the Gotham Center for New York City History, is a montage of images of Thirty-fourth Street, past and present. Contemporary images were taken by photographer Jeanette O’Keefe during the summer of 2010. These color street shots contrast beautifully with the historic images of Thirty-fourth.

In 1976, as the United States celebrated its Bicentennial, the Murray Hill Neighborhood Association (MHNA) organized an exhibition of images which depicted how their neighborhood had changed over the last hundred years. That exhibition, which for many years was on display at the CUNY Graduate Center, is at the heart of this digital project which expanded upon the 1976 materials by adding newly commissioned photographs and hiring a graduate student to research the architectural history of each site.

Constructed in an era when roads were little more than ruts and dirt pathways, the Erie Canal opened up East-West trade in the newly developing United States, providing an all water connection between the interior U. S. and the Atlantic coast seaports. Built almost entirely by man and horsepower, construction began on the canal on July 4, 1817 with little public support and no government funding.
This online exhibit of the Erie Canal is a the result of a collaboration between the Seymour B. Durst Old York Library and The Eighteenth-Century Reading Room at the CUNY Graduate Center.